


Dedication Above All Else

by QuickSilverFox3



Series: The International Wizarding School Championship [16]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Curse Breaking, Danger, Gen, Inspired by Indiana Jones, No Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 17:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20029348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickSilverFox3/pseuds/QuickSilverFox3
Summary: Curse Breaking is dangerous. There's the wards and the traps, the relentless heat and deadlines looming over your head. And then there's the treasure hunters...





	Dedication Above All Else

**Author's Note:**

> (International Wizarding School Championship Summer Camp Round 4: Paintballing)

Sand was everywhere. Bill squeezed his eyes shut tighter, pressing his face further into the grit with snarl but it made no difference, eyes watering even more as he heard spells slam into the ground mere inches from him. And the day had been going so well before now. Not the kind of well where the day seemed blessed, everything slowly turning grey under the cloud of suspicion because something must be about to happen. His toast had been burnt black, the ancient toaster launching a protest against him for some perceived slight, the enchanted appliance's accent so thick he couldn't understand it; but that was normal. The bus had begun to leave without him, several minutes before it should have arrived at all, seats empty save for the flies buzzing around the carriage as he leapt onto the back, a fellow Curse Breaker almost landing on top of him a few moments later when he hadn't moved quick enough. And it had been blistering hot, dry heat that seemed to cook your very bones.

"_We know you're there!_"

Bill got already feel himself burning, the protective spells of this morning seeming a lifetime away now. He slowly raised his head, sand falling from him like rain and gazed at the scene in front of him. From beneath the gap of the rickety car, loose pipes blocking his view, he could see feet, heavy boots. That meant these were serious treasure hunters. Never something Gringotts would admit to being a problem, tucked neatly under the rug like everything else with those idiots at the Ministry choosing to remain wilfully blind, but a problem nevertheless. If Bill's job, Curse Breaking as a whole, could be described as scavenging, vultures picking over a long dead corpse, then the treasure hunters were flies, nothing but a nuisance, but still dangerous.

One... Two, three? Yeah, three and four. Bill squinted at the feet, the hunters beginning to slowly prowl out from their car, boots sticking in the sand, sand clinging to his face. They seemed hesitant, unsure of the movements in this silent camp. Everyone else was unconscious or gathering supplies when the truck exploded into view, ripping through the wards like wet paper. That implied an insider job, something Bill would take great pleasure in exposing and leaving the perpetrator to the mercy of the Goblins. But something wasn't quite right. They had invaded a skeleton camp, they knew this, or there would have been more.

The scar trailing down his spine still burned coldly when thunderstorms brewed overhead from the last camp invasion, the man's face hidden behind his scarf, features blurred through a Disillusionment charm. A cold sweat prickled Bill's skin, sand sticking even closer to him, heart thumping in his chest like a frightened rabbit's. What was wrong here? He couldn't afford to be lost in the path, to let the panic and the pain consume him again. One of the men slipped, boots skidding across the sand and he screamed, a true high-pitched wail of pure terror, cut off after a second and it hit Bill like lightning.

They knew how to get through the wards, they knew when to attack so that there would only be two guards and a Curse Breaker, they knew where the dig was being conducted. But the most important thing was missing. They didn't know where the pit was. Laughter bubbled in his throat, the popping noise of the guard’s portkey's activating barely even registering as he pressed his face back into the sand, shoulders shaking.

"_Where are you, you snake? Are you dead in the dust like a dog?_"

Artifact, untouched for hundreds of years were what they came for, blinded by the whisper of Galleons in their ears. Bill wanted preservation, he wanted learning, he wanted to never again have to read a story about children playing in a cave, away from the desert heat, only to be killed by a ward no-one had seen before in living memory. He wanted it more. He pressed himself up, feeling old scars twist and pull, ears watering and red rimmed, sand tacky against his skin, feet moving silently on the sand. He could go two ways, no-one would judge him on his choices: waiting and hiding for backup, risking that the hunters will steal the recently uncovered artefacts, whisking them away to the black market where they would languish on some rich person's shelf until the spell either wears out or breaks and kills them; or action. And Bill hadn't been put in Gryffindor solely on his family history.

"Thanks, dad," he mouthed as he dragged himself up, copper filling his mouth as he bit down to mask the sudden noise of pain. Red was spilling across the formerly dusty brown linen on his leg. That changed things, but he was nothing if not stubborn. Shaking, adrenaline setting fire to his veins, Bill unholstered his wand with a smooth flick of the wrist, magic crackling at his fingertips, eager to be used. Other's viewed magic as nothing more than a call and respond, words to an action; but his very job was based on more than that, on calculating which words, which symbols, how they combined to produce magic. It wasn't, strictly speaking, legal what he was planning to do as he drew the symbols in the air, wind beginning to pick up around him.

Long hours watching his dad tinker with Muggle machinery, of smuggling scraps of metal, coils of wire, and strangely shaped gears home through windows, in flowerpots, hidden inside the tiny pockets of Fred and George's baby clothes, was finally about to pay off. The spell came into being quickly, the metal shifting into something unrecognisable, but unmistakeably dangerous. It roared, a high-pitched metallic shriek as the hunters whirled on it, boots slipping, some falling to their knees and Bill was off.

The wind was loud in his ears as he sprinted, head light and woozy but a fierce grin slipping across his face. Shouts reached him, language unrecognisable, but the hiss of spells could never be missed, spraying up fountains of sand as they scorched the earth around him.

Just a bit further.

One.

Pain in his leg, push it down.

Two.

Spell. Duck, move!

Three.

Screams, metal twisting and snapping.

Four.

Spell! No-

Bill fell.

❢◥ ▬▬▬▬▬▬ ◆ ▬▬▬▬▬▬ ◤❢

"Bill? Bill?"

Bill waved a hand, still mostly asleep, grumbling as he did so. So sleepy, just five more minutes.

"Bill!"

"Go 'way," Bill called, burying his face into the pillow he was lying on. Whatever time it was, it was definitely too early.

"Bill, I need you to look at me, then you can sleep."

Too bright. Bill squinted, trying to shield his eyes with his other hand, but he couldn't move.

"Calm down, calm down."

Bill opened both his eyes, craning his neck as he gazed down at the faces of his team, worried grins on all their faces.

"Tomb's safe, you locked it behind you when you fell down."

He huffed out a laugh as he relaxed back onto the pillow, fists uncurling as his knuckles cracked.

"Please don't tell my Mum."


End file.
